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One of my coworkers with a telsa said he hasn't had to use the actual brakes yet for anything, apparently there's a little display setting that lets you now when you're actually using the brakes. But he's also only had it for a few months and hasn't had any emergency stops.

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Fascinating stuff... I really hate maintaining my wife's car as she will drive for 6 months with a check engine light on without telling me... so the lack of regular maintenance on a tesla is a huge selling point.

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I'm not knowledgable enough to fully understand the environmental negatives and positives with electric cars vs. gas cars. I remember reading that Tesla recycles their batteries, so is the only impact with extraction?

Based on my limited knowledge, I always thought that the impact of fossil fuels was much greater.

I'm sure it really depends on who you cut it, like anything it's very difficult an apples to apples comparison. I'm not trying to wiggle out of my statement, more just saying I lack the knowledge to accurately discuss the full environmental of building a Tesla. But in broad terms
1. American car, probably runs on gas or diesel produced domestically, transport from well head to refinery to vehicle is under 2000 miles... worst case.
2. Tesla, battery built out of material mined in Africa shipped to the US, electricity generated to run car is likely from either a coal or NG plant. In terms of power generated per BTU of OG product it's less efficient to: burn NG to create electricity then transport it through the grid to your house to your car, than to just burn that amount of petroleum in your car directly. A huge amount of electricity is lost in the grid. Obviously some areas have a higher % of power generated by renewable. But just because you are driving an electric vehicle doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't require petroleum to power it.

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I'm sure it really depends on who you cut it, like anything it's very difficult an apples to apples comparison. I'm not trying to wiggle out of my statement, more just saying I lack the knowledge to accurately discuss the full environmental of building a Tesla. But in broad terms
1. American car, probably runs on gas or diesel produced domestically, transport from well head to refinery to vehicle is under 2000 miles... worst case.
2. Tesla, battery built out of material mined in Africa shipped to the US, electricity generated to run car is likely from either a coal or NG plant. In terms of power generated per BTU of OG product it's less efficient to: burn NG to create electricity then transport it through the grid to your house to your car, than to just burn that amount of petroleum in your car directly. A huge amount of electricity is lost in the grid. Obviously some areas have a higher % of power generated by renewable. But just because you are driving an electric vehicle doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't require petroleum to power it.

Also there needs to be a decent consumer base to drive companies to build the infrastructure and develop the tech, so you can argue that by buying an EV now you are helping drive our economy/companies to build-out the system that will actually reduce environmental impact.

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WLLM touches some good points. We can’t call our nuclear energy renewable because it consumes mined uranium that results in spent uranium. We can call it clean because it emits zero carbon, but not renewable

Solar panels can be called renewable, although they consume raw mined metals like rare earths and also result in spent panels at the end of their lives.
It’s a weird thing.

For example, It’s pretty easy to make the case that electricity produced from natural gas, which otherwise would be flared off as an oil biproduct is the greenest energy around.

At the end of the day, you’re just plugging your Tesla into whatever your electric source is. For many of you, that’s coal.
Tesla’s appeal to me is more their speed, and how cheap they are to ‘fill up’ especially when you can charge at work or at home at night during peak rates.

I would never buy residential solar, especially if you can’t participate in net metering, until home battery prices get to a point that you can economically store the energy you produce. Otherwise you’re just overloading the grid mid day when you’re not home and drawing from it when you’re not producing anything. It’s called the ‘Duck Curve’ if anybody wants to look that term up and look at the graphs.

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I would never buy residential solar, especially if you can’t participate in net metering, until home battery prices get to a point that you can economically store the energy you produce. Otherwise you’re just overloading the grid mid day when you’re not home and drawing from it when you’re not producing anything. It’s called the ‘Duck Curve’ if anybody wants to look that term up and look at the graphs.

And with the combo of wind and hydro we have a surplus of power in the spring that has to be grounded out as the grid is full and you can only spill so much water over the dams or you start harming salmon. A new all night power demand on the grid could actually be quite useful.

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Very useful. As solar expands power companies will struggle more with the duck curve and are very supportive of electrification of cars, fork lifts, and encouraging consumers to shift use to to off peak hours.
For example in Phoenix, power is expensive from 3-8 and is very cheap at other times, especially from 8-3 in the winter when it’s almost free.

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I look at it a little differently than most. Electric or gas, you are going to have pay the piper. With gas/diesel you are the power plant and the pollution is local to you and your neighbors. With electric, you are most likely depending on coal whose pollution is downwind to the plant itself.
My most likely nonsensical view is: I can choose to live far away from that coal powerplant. I can't choose at all to avoid the full size 1990's Dodge blowing black death (and proud of it) out its tailpipe. We all know stories of people dying from lung cancer that never smoked a single cigarette. I also speculate that when the pollution is contained to a single source, it would be more manageable.

WLLM touches some good points. We can’t call our nuclear energy renewable because it consumes mined uranium that results in spent uranium. We can call it clean because it emits zero carbon, but not renewable

Solar panels can be called renewable, although they consume raw mined metals like rare earths and also result in spent panels at the end of their lives.
It’s a weird thing.

For example, It’s pretty easy to make the case that electricity produced from natural gas, which otherwise would be flared off as an oil biproduct is the greenest energy around.

At the end of the day, you’re just plugging your Tesla into whatever your electric source is. For many of you, that’s coal.
Tesla’s appeal to me is more their speed, and how cheap they are to ‘fill up’ especially when you can charge at work or at home at night during peak rates.

I would never buy residential solar, especially if you can’t participate in net metering, until home battery prices get to a point that you can economically store the energy you produce. Otherwise you’re just overloading the grid mid day when you’re not home and drawing from it when you’re not producing anything. It’s called the ‘Duck Curve’ if anybody wants to look that term up and look at the graphs.

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If electric is the future, I feel fortunate to have witnessed the making of obscene and unnecessary horsepower and torque from internal combustion engines. Both gas and diesel. Good stuff, and I owned a super fast one once.I think it's pretty cool that even the new mid-engined Corvette still has a pushrod V-8. And spanks the Euros. Electric is not for me. mtmuley

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Ford just invested big bucks into Rivian with thoughts of collaboration in the future. Ford claims they're coming out with a F150 hybrid in 2020. I've heard talk that you can use the hybrid battery to power tools and electronics. It's going to happen in our lifetime(for many of us at least)